Adoption Appeal Turned Down : Justices: State Supreme Court leaves intact a victory for a Cypress mother over an Aleut tribe seeking custody of her girl.

In a bittersweet defeat for an Aleut tribe, the California Supreme Court has refused to review a Santa Ana court ruling that gives the tribe the right to intervene in the adoption of a part-Aleut toddler but makes its victory nearly impossible.

The move by the state’s highest court leaves intact a June lower-court ruling that is viewed as a victory for the child’s mother, Jodi Argleben, 20, of Cypress.

In the June decision, the state’s 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana held that the Akhiok Tribal Council of Kodiak Island, Alaska, has the right to argue in court that Rebecca Argleben, now almost 2 1/2, should be adopted by an Aleut family.

While that was a theoretical victory for the tribe, the appeals court added guidelines that turned the ruling into a defeat for the Aleuts. The justices said that while they could make their arguments, the Aleuts must bear in mind that the law “severely limits” their right to control the destiny of a child who was not born on a reservation or reared there.

Jack F. Trope, the New York attorney representing the Akhiok tribe, said Wednesday that the guidelines form “an obstacle we’ll have to overcome.”

The tribe has not yet decided whether to appeal that part of the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said.

Argleben’s attorney, Christian R. Van Deusen, said that although the appellate ruling favors his client, he is “troubled” by its constitutional implications.

He cited the court’s holding that under California law, any party with an interest in the outcome has the right to intervene in an adoption.

“Does it mean that if you have a Jewish child available for adoption who was born to a woman in the Orthodox Jewish community, that the Orthodox Jews can intervene in that adoption?” he asked. “Where would it end?”

The state Supreme Court’s Oct. 2 refusal to review the ruling, received this week by attorneys in the case, shifts the next phase of argument to Orange County Superior Court, unless one of the parties appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Argleben, who lives in Cypress with her parents and works in a gift shop, contends that she has the right to decide who should rear the baby she is trying to put up for adoption.

She has vowed to bring up the child herself rather than see her grow up in the poverty-ridden Alaskan town where Argleben was abused and neglected, before being adopted by the Cypress couple at age 3.

“I want her to have everything I had when I was growing up” in Cypress, she said Wednesday. “She wouldn’t have a very good life on the reservation.”

Citing a federal law designed to stem the breakup of American Indian families, the Aleuts argued that the future of the tribe and of Rebecca were both best served by seeing her raised with Aleuts.

A single mother who became pregnant by a non-Indian boyfriend, Argleben placed Rebecca with prospective adoptive parents in Vancouver, Canada. The child has been living there since she was 5 months old.

Argleben said Rebecca is “considered one of the family” in Canada. The couple sends her pictures of the child every few months, she said, adding: “She’s much better off with them than she would be with me. She has a mom and a dad and sisters and brothers. I’m working and going to school, so I’m not home very much.”

The unidentified couple has a formal adoption petition pending before British Columbia courts.

Trope said a Canadian attorney will represent the Aleuts in that proceeding and will argue that the couple should not be permitted to adopt the toddler.

Sylvia L. Paoli, the Tustin lawyer appointed to represent Rebecca, said she believes that it is in the child’s best interests to remain with the Vancouver couple.